07.22.08
Chapter 12
Geena and Becky sat down in the little room next to Chapman’s playroom. They drank coffee and watched him through the one-way glass. It had become a ritual over the last year, every afternoon at 3 p.m. they would take a break and discuss his progress. He was nine now, busily playing with Legos, creating an elaborate structure.
“He’s constantly surprising me with his intelligence,” Geena said. “Jeffries was right, a hybrid is more intelligent than either parent species.”
Becky nodded. She had to agree, although she’d grown tired of having her son compared to a mule. Jeffries was almost fascinated with the creatures. A mule has a horse mother and a donkey father and is smarter than either animal.
“Chapman’s about as stubborn as a mule,” Becky said fondly.
“Or as stubborn as a nine-year-old boy,” Geena said. Although they were scientists and Chapman was a research subject, the circumstances of the boy’s birth softened the women’s attitude toward him. Geena had been the egg doner and surrogate mother for Fiona, Chapman’s mother. Fiona was a half-human/half-chimpanzee. Becky was the surrogate mother of Chapman. Fiona’s egg had been fertilized with a human sperm and then Becky had carried the fetus to term. It was necessary to have a human rather than a chimpanzee carry the fetus because the size of the offspring is regulated by the size of the mother. That is why mules (horse mother/donkey father)
are larger than hinnies (donkey mother/horse father).
“I’m glad Chapman isn’t constantly playing with his toys as if they were guns,” Geena said with grandmotherly pride. Vestiges of the hippy girl who’d entered this experiment to prove that humans can live in peace (just like chimpanzees) still shone through at odd moments.
Becky thought of Geena as a friend, and, in a strange was, as a mother figure. She didn’t reply to what Geena said. Chapman had tired of playing with toy guns made out of Legoes. He’d been surprising attentive during his history lesson today; now Becky understood why and was glad Geena wasn’t playing close attention to Chapman’s playing. Geena was just happy she didn’t see a toy gun.
Becky and Geena drank their coffee and Chapman happily played with his action figures and his Legos, lost in a world of innocent childish fantasy, pretending to kill with the toy guillotine he’d built.
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